Strategies, tips, how to's and best practices for online video publishers

In this video from OnlineVideo.net, Troy Dreier talks with Sorenson Media’s COO Eric Quanstrom about What Is an Online Video Platform? They discuss the basics of OVPs and the value that OVPs bring to small businesses. According to VidCompare, an Online Video Platform is: “typically a SaaS (software as a service) solution providing end-to-end tools to manage, publish and measure online video content for both on-demand and live delivery. Typical components of an OVPP include video hosting, encoding, custom players, syndication, analytics, as well as interactivity and monetization through a variety of online advertising options typically 3rd-party ad-servers/networks. Most OVPPs offer scalable product packages for both self-serve SMB publishers up to large media companies.”

In her most recent New Media Minute, Daisy Whitney talked with my good friend Mark Robertson, publisher and Founder of ReelSEO, and leading expert in online video search, about the secret sauce of video SEO. Mark says that content creators shouldn’t get bogged down in the inner workings or search, but that publishers should. Take note online video publishers, take video search seriously!!

Mark points out that a large portion of discovery comes from search, but search engines have a difficult time crawling and searching for video content. So he recommends several video best practices video best practices to make sure your video is discovered by search. Besides having great, unique content and relative content, and metdata to surround the video, and a well optimized website – Mark says that creating and submitting a Google Video Sitemap for your video content is the best way to show up in Universal Search, and your best chance to show up on page one of Google search.

Episode description:

Want to get more views for your videos? Have you optimized them for search? Knowing how to get your videos found via search can make a big difference in your views. But it’s something few video producers do. So come learn the tricks of Google video search from Mark Robertson with ReelSEO!

For many businesses, there’s that Shakespearean moment when it comes to marketing, and that is: “To use video, or not to use video, that is the question.”

It can be a daunting task to decide what to say and how to say it, when most people don’t really have the experience of producing a video. In this video, online video marketers Dr. Marc Kossmann and Charlie Seymour Jr share why video is so important. Video, at it’s core, is about communicating a message, and for businesses, it can be a way to answers questions about the products and services and present a brand message.

Video is everywhere, and if you are not using video to tell your story, if you aren’t producing quality videos that show who YOU are, your competition will beat you every time.

At Streaming Media West 2009, I caught up with Amanda Congdon, new media producer and host of, Sometimesdaily, which can be seen on web and mobile television. Amanda and her small production team that consists of her husband Mario Librandi and brother Andrew Congdon, were at Streaming Media West to promote FLO TV, the live mobile TV service from Qualcomm. Their show is available on FLO TV handsets and has wide mobile distribution on FLO TV-capable phones reaching 200 million cell phone users throughout the United States.

Amanda also discussed how the FLO TV distribution model works for her show, which is through licensing. She says their content is uncensored and is exactly as you see it, from the video edited on Final Cut to the FLO TV network. The wide mobile distribution through the FLO TV network expands the reach of SometimesDaily to hundreds of millions of mobile phones, far beyond what the web could provide.

Sometimesdaily is an interactive online variety show. Throughout the work week Amanda and company tackle the topics of the day through short videos handcrafted for easy digestion, just like homemade pasta. These episodes include Amanda-on-the-street interviews, quirky skits and news vignettes. Because videoblogging is an interactive medium, we incorporate viewer feedback throughout the show. Our viewer created tagline is: Sometimesdaily – Taming the bizarre for normal people to enjoy.

This is a special “Behind the Red Carpet” interview from Streaming Media West 2009 with Zadi Diaz, new media producer, host and co-creator of the award web series EPIC FU. Zadi and her husband and long-time creative partner Steve WoolfSteve Woolfe are respected pioneers in the web television space. Zadi spoke at Streaming Media West 2009 panel session, Web Television Comes of Age and was interviewed on the Red Carpet by Peter Cervieri.

Zadi had a few minutes to share some advise to producers who are trying to break into the web television space.

“First, think about the story you want to tell. Really know the audience online. Who’s the audience online? Who are you going to be talking to? What’s the community like? Look at all those things and how you’re story fits into that, look at all the niche audiences.”

Zadi said that partnerships are important, and that you should align yourself with passionate people behind the scenes. If you’re good at storytelling but not editing, it will show and will bring your quality down. So focus on what you’re good at and build your support system to get help with the things you’re not good at, like videography, editing or marketing.

This is similar advice Zadi shared in this related post: Epic Fu on How To Make a Kick-Ass Web Show, where she runs down all the tools you need to make an awesome web show, from ideas to equipment to distribution.

Zadi also talked about how storytelling is evolving, and how immersive it’s going to be through online video and alternate reality gaming (ARG) experiences. She noted XBOX 360 Project Natal, which does away with the game controller for a hands-free gaming experience through motion detection and speech recognition, as an emerging next-generation social and entertainment network.